


Five Times Sam Gave Gabriel the Kiss of Death (and One Time he Didn't)

by ScrollingKingfisher



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Because all his love interests seem to die, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, M/M, Sam Winchester's curse, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 22:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12467732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScrollingKingfisher/pseuds/ScrollingKingfisher
Summary: Everybody Sam kisses dies, right? That's his curse. So he figures that if it works on his lovers, it should damn well work on his enemies, too.Only this is Sam Winchester's life, and nothing is ever easy like that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as ever to my wonderful beta TheRiverScribe for all your lovely encouragement! <3

 

 

 

**1\. Mystery spot**

 

 

It starts in a moment of pure, unadulterated insanity. 

 

Insanity isn’t so unusual for Sam these days; he was trapped in Mystery Spot for around a year, and now he’s spent almost six months without Dean.

 

During the dark moments, when he gets so lonely that he can barely breathe, he sometimes recalls those few, sweet memories of people who he had cared about. Not Dean, because the loss is still too raw for that. But sometimes his thoughts drift to Jessica, or Sarah.

 

After that, of course, when the warm glow of the memories has worn off, comes the bitter realisation that everyone he has ever kissed seems to die. Maybe he’s cursed, he wonders, staring up at the mouldering roof of his latest squat. Maybe he will never kiss anyone ever again, for fear of them turning monstrous or dropping dead. Probably both.

 

A wild thought enters his brain; maybe he  _ is  _ cursed. Maybe he should use that, the next time he comes across something that deserves it. 

 

And seeing the trickster finally in front of him during their final confrontation, the cruel smile on his face as he lords it over Sam about how he should know better, about how he ‘needs to let go of his brother’, well. The trickster deserves a little poetic justice. This would be just his kind of irony. 

 

So Sam lunges forwards. He has half a second to relish the wide golden-eyed surprise on the trickster’s face, and then he’s grappling with him. Sam pours his everything into the kiss, all the emotions that have been brewing up behind his sternum for years, all the hatred and the despair and the seething, boiling anger. It’s a not a nice kiss, more like an attack, all dominating teeth and tongue. The trickster is stock still under him, mouth open and slack until Sam bites his lip viciously. Then the trickster’s moving, pushing back against him, giving as good as he gets until Sam has to yank away to breathe.

 

He pulls back and staggers back a step, panting. He can taste iron on his tongue, whether it’s his own blood or the tricksters, he can’t tell. 

 

The trickster stares at him. He stares back. The room is filled with the sort of awkward shellshocked silence that makes Sam realise that he’s really, truly caught the trickster unawares. He feels a little stupid, now that sanity’s caught up with him. What was he trying to do, kiss him to death? But he glowers at the trickster anyway, defiant.

 

Sam expects the trickster to say something, to dismiss the kiss or mock him or kill him where he stands. But instead the trickster just stalls there, expressions flickering across his face faster than Sam can catch them. Then, without saying a word, the trickster raises a hand and snaps. 

 

It takes Sam a while to adjust to Dean being alive again, but he finds himself thinking about the trickster occasionally in the next few months. The Kiss of Death hasn’t worked, as far as he knows. But for now he has Dean back, so for the longest time, Sam does his best to forget all about it.

 

  
**2\. Changing Channels**

 

They had known what they were letting themselves in for the moment that they had stepped into the warehouse.

 

This time, he didn’t really want the trickster to die, per say. He’s angry, of course he is. He hasn’t forgotten the desperation of those six months. But this time, he wasn’t going to be manipulated. He wasn’t going to let the trickster push him around in his little ‘games’. 

 

So when he finally bursts through the door onto the set of the sitcom, Sam sees a potential opportunity. He waits while he duct tapes Cas’ mouth shut, and while Dean gets more and more angry. Then finally, he starts preaching to them about ‘playing their roles,’ and Sam has had enough. Anything to shut him up.

 

With one quick step, Sam corners the trickster against the hideous wallpaper and drags him in by the lapels. The trickster is a little more prepared this time; after the first second, he’s kissing back, his tongue slipping into Sam’s mouth, taking over the kiss with experienced precision. Damn, he’s good.

 

It’s  _ infuriating _ . 

 

Sam dives back in, using every trick in the book. He licks into his mouth, their teeth clacking together. Then strong fingers grip his arms, supernatural strength flipping them around until Sam is the one pressed back against the wall, the trickster practically climbing him to get closer. Sam can’t help a little startled groan at the change in position, heat tingling through him as he pushes back against the restraining hands.

 

They break apart, panting for breath. The trickster’s hair has come down from its usual stupid combed back look and is flopping over his face in disarray, the front of his jacket all rucked up and lopsided. That, combined with the satisfyingly stunned look on his face, make him look utterly flustered and debauched. Good. Sam lets himself smirk a little.

 

The trickster narrows his eyes at him before disappearing in a crackle of static. The game is on.

 

_ That should do it! _ Sam thinks in triumph for a second before turning around.

 

He’d completely forgotten that he had an audience. Dean is staring at him, eyes wide and mouth open. Cas just frowns at him over the tape, confused.

 

“Sam… did you just… what the…?” Dean is spluttering, appalled, absolutely lost for words, and if Sam wasn’t slowly turning red from mortification, it would have been hilarious.

 

Luckily the trickster saves Sam from any further humiliation by choosing that moment to throw them headlong into a procedural cop drama. Sam’s still dreading getting out of here. Dean’s going to tease him for  _ years _ .

 

If they live that long.

 

**3\. The Revelation**

 

So. He isn’t a trickster. He’s an angel.

 

And not just any angel, either, the freaking  _ archangel Gabriel _ on top of that.

 

Sam doesn’t really know how to deal with that. He had  _ kissed  _ an archangel. An archangel who stares out of that circle of holy fire at him with such a familiar level of anger and frustration reflected in his eyes that it’s hard not to empathise. Sam flicks on the sprinklers once he’s explained himself, and he’s vanished before Sam even turns around.

 

Gabriel isn’t gone, though. He keeps appearing after that, popping into Sam’s room whenever he freaking fancies it, apparently just for the pleasure of riling him up. Sam knows what he’s really doing, though. The archangel shows up, makes a few inflammatory comments about them having to end the world, then waits around looking hopeful, like a puppy that’s pulled off a new trick and now expects a treat.

 

And Sam can’t help it. He gives in. Because Gabriel is frustrating, and annoying, and also (though it takes it a while to admit it to himself), because Gabriel is an excellent kisser. 

 

And somehow, the kissing gets less angry and turns into making out. And even more making out. Which morphs into a spectacular round of angry sex on the day of a particularly bad hunt. Which leads to a second round of slow, gentle sex later that evening. And then he’s confessing to Gabriel about how he had to kill all those poor people the werewolves turned, and he falls asleep with Gabriel’s hand gentle in his hair and his voice in his ear, telling him a story about Thor and ancient asgard. 

 

After that it just… keeps happening. Dean complains loudly, mostly because he refuses to knock on the freaking door and catches an eyeful or two, but Sam has never cared less. Being with Gabriel is a whirlwind of kissing, and comfort, and a few occasions of Gabriel getting pissed at the demons who keep catching them (and Sam’s never going to admit how hot he finds it when Gabriel comes storming in, all hard gold burning eyes and wings out, and obliterates a warehouse with a thought. Never.)

 

There’s only one dark spot on his newfound happiness. It occurs to him while he’s lying in bed, listening as Gabriel whistles while he cooks them breakfast in the tiny motel kitchenette. He smiles, a warm feeling glowing in his chest. He might actually… he might…

 

Sam might actually love Gabriel.

 

He has a minute of golden happiness before the realisation sinks in and his eyes widen in horror.

 

Oh, god.

 

Oh, god, this isn’t good.

 

Because he remembers how all this started. He might as well have pushed Gabriel in front of a firing squad. Nobody who kisses him lives, loving him is a death sentence. Sam is poison, he knows that. 

 

He had kissed Gabriel at first, and nothing had happened, but what about now? Now that his feelings are genuine? Maybe the curse only works if he actually  _ feels  _ it, because fate is a cruel bitch and Sam’s life is never kind. 

 

Gabriel pops his head around the corner and grins at him, wearing nothing except a  _ kiss the cook  _ apron, and Sam fakes a smile back. He can’t leave Gabriel. He’s in too deep. But now there’s a terrifying doubt at the back of his mind that even this small piece of happiness that he’s carved out of the chaos of his life can never last.

 

  
**4\. Hammer of the Gods**

 

“Are you alright?” Dean asks from where they’re huddled behind the table, and Sam has to resist the impulse to laugh hysterically. He’s just seen his lover get stabbed in the chest with his own blade. Lucifer, the devil who has been trying to seduce him into letting him wear Sam’s skin, is battling the goddess of death just across the room from them. Of course he’s not fucking alright. But before Dean can say this, someone answers for him.

 

“Not really.”

 

He whirls, and there’s Gabriel. He looks older, even though it’s only been a few short minutes since he’d seen him last, and a thousand times more tired.

 

Gabriel’s eyes linger on his for a second, but there’s no time. Gabriel smacks something into Dean’s chest. “Guard this with your life.”

 

He’s about to go. Without thinking, Sam lunges forwards, pulls him back down where they’re crouched behind the table with a hand twisted into the front of his jacket, and kisses him. It’s hard, and desperate; Sam tries to pour everything he feels into the kiss, all the love and regrets and fear and desperate, hopeless hope that they’ll make it out of this alive. 

 

Gabriel’s hands are gentle on his shoulders, pushing him back.

 

“Please,” Sam begs, and his voice cracks down the middle because this is it, this is what he has been terrified of ever since it became real, they can’t fight Lucifer and he knows with terrifying certainty that Gabriel is going to be  _ killed  _ and it’s  _ all his fault _ -

 

Gabriel smiles at him, small and sad, and his hands slide up to gently cup Sam’s face. 

 

Then a fireball hits the other side of the table and Gabriel’s pulling away, and all that’s left is running. 

 

  
**5\. After**

 

It’s the next night before Sam can bring himself to go back to the Elysian Fields hotel. They’d watched what was basically Gabriel’s suicide note that morning, and Sam had spent the rest of the day in a sort of numb haze. Dean had spent the day in awkward silence, and had nodded in some relief when Sam told him that he was going out. He hadn’t asked where he was going.

 

It’s strange, Sam thinks as he pulls up, that he doesn’t feel worse. Maybe it’s like when you cut off an animal’s head and it keeps running for a few seconds. He just hasn’t realised that he’s dead yet.

 

Whatever magic had repaired the place had died with the gods. Odd details jump out at him as he walks through the ruins of the hotel; the weeds pushing up through the tarmac, the doors half rotted off their hinges, the lingering smell of damp rot. 

 

He gets to the ballroom, and the breath dies in his lungs. He gets dizzy for a second, doesn’t remember crossing the room, but suddenly he’s on his knees by Gabriel. He’s so still, so pale, and oh god, there’s ash on the floor, there’s ash on his jeans and smeared greasy on his fingers where they’re shaking against Gabriel’s collar. Sam can’t look at his chest, can’t look at all the blood.

 

He kneels there, shaking, for what feels like forever. Long enough that the damp chill seeps through the knees of his jeans. Ever so gently, he leans over and presses his lips to Gabriel’s cold ones. 

 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

 

He stands stiffly, then walks to the corner of the room and retches until there’s nothing left inside and he’s throwing up bile. 

 

Then he goes back and gathers Gabriel’s body into his shaky arms and walks outside. He should get the spade from the trunk. He’s going to need to dig.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
  


**+1  Five Years Later**

 

It’s been a very long time since Sam thought about Gabriel.  

 

It’s not that he regrets it. Not at all. He’s lost a great many people and parts of himself since then. He’s shelved those few, happy memories in with the ones he keeps of Jess. he can’t think about them all the time. But on the nights which are particularly dark, when he wakes from nightmares of torture and fire and Lucifer’s voice laughing, he pulls them out, holding onto them tight until the sun rises and he stops shivering.

 

He doesn’t tend to kiss people any more, though. Not even the very occasional one night stand. He and Amelia even had a strict no-kissing policy, because she knew that they were never going to last, and because he was frightened that as soon as he did, she would be gone.

 

It’s been a crazy few months. He’s neck deep in researching other ways to destroy Abaddon, now that he has persuaded Dean not to take the Mark of Cain, when Cas enters the library.

 

Sam smiles at him, pulling out the chair next to him so that Cas can sit. It’s been a trying time for all of them, and every time Sam sees their angel he looks more run down. Sometimes he comes into the library just to sit with Sam quietly, each of them comfortable and glad to relax in each other’s company for a few hours. An escape from a world that seems to turn upside down without fail every six months.

 

This time though Cas looks like he has something to say. He clears his throat awkwardly. Sam looks up from his book.

 

“Sam. I have reason to believe… that Gabriel is alive.”

 

The silence turns wire-taut.

 

Sam laughs harshly. “No. he’s not.”

 

Cas hesitates, then reaches down to put his fingertips on the back of Sam’s hand. Sam pulls it away. “Sam. Please. I know that you… I know that something happened, between you and Gabriel. And I can see why you would be upset by me claiming that he has returned. But -”

 

“No.” Sam laughs again, a little strangled. “You don’t understand, Cas. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.”

 

Cas doesn’t question him, just sits down opposite him and looks at him very seriously. “Why do you think that, Sam?”

 

It’s so much worse than if he had argued, because Sam can feel the answer bubbling up at the back of his throat.

 

“Because… because everyone I’ve ever kissed… they all die. Every single one of them.”

 

It’s a long time before he looks up again, but when he does he sees Cas looking at him with so much sympathy he has to look away. 

 

Cas doesn’t comment. Instead, he sits there while Sam explains about Jess and Sarah and Gabriel, hell, even Ruby. Then he holds out his hand.

 

“Come with me.”

 

Cas leads them all the way to a deserted warehouse, one of the many which had belonged to Metatron. It turns out to be not-so-deserted, and after they’ve fought their way through two angels and five layers of death traps, they come to a circle of burning holy fire and something chained in the middle of it, shivering.

 

Somehow, it’s still a shock to see Gabriel. He looks so small lying on the concrete floor. And when Sam picks him up, he’s so light. Like all the weighty presence that he had carried has evaporated. Sam can’t take his eyes off him, sits with him in the back seat while Dean drives them back, as though if he looks away Gabriel might sublime directly into vapour, as insubstantial as a ghost. 

 

Gabriel doesn’t wake that evening, or the next morning, or the morning after that. He finally blinks his eyes open late on the afternoon of the third day, and immediately scrunches them closed again. He groans, voice thick with displeasure.

 

Then he turns and squints, and the groggy smile that spreads across his face feels like it lights Sam’s heart on fire. 

 

“Sam? ‘S that you?” he asks, and Sam could kiss him, but he doesn’t. He sweeps him up in a bone-crushing hug instead, before Cas and Dean arrive.

 

Sam doesn’t kiss him straight away. Or for the next few days. He tells himself that it’s because he needs more time to adjust to the fact that Gabriel’s alive again, sitting up and wandering around the bunker and complaining about the food and his lack of powers.

 

But it’s not about that. Not really. 

 

Sam’s terrified.

 

What if it happens again? What if he gets Gabriel back just to lose him now? Sam’s been through a lot, but he thinks that might just be the thing that finally breaks him. So no matter how much it makes his heart ache, he avoids Gabriel. Because Gabriel being alive is worth more than a kiss will ever be.

 

It takes Gabriel a full week to corner him about it, mostly because Sam is a lot faster than Gabriel when he hasn’t got his powers. Finally, he manages to get him alone in the library, backed up against one of the bookshelves. He tries to kiss Sam, and when Sam flinches back, he looks so hurt that Sam’s heart feels as though it’s being wrung through his ribs.

 

“Why?” Gabriel asks.

 

Sam tries to hold it back, but it all comes spilling out in one big shameful rush, the full explanation of the curse and his death and why Sam had kissed him in the first place.

 

Gabriel just stares at him for a minute, mouth slightly open in surprise. Then he leans forwards, and he might have no grace at the moment but Sam could swear his eyes are glowing. “Sam. Listen to me. You’re not cursed. I didn’t die because I kissed you. I died because my asshat older brother stabbed me, and no, that wasn’t your fault either.” Sam doesn’t believe him, and Gabriel must know that because he sighs, the creases around his eyes softening. “Sam. I… I love you. I died, but I came back, right? I’ll always come back to you. It’ll take more than some puny curse to keep me away.”

 

And Sam can’t hold himself back anymore. He takes that beloved face in his hands and he kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.

 

There are more days in front of them, a long rough road ahead. But Gabriel never breaks his promise; he always comes back.

 


End file.
